Airplane Deduction

[gman]

Taxpayer's son in aviation school. Taxpayer is pilot for a local college. Son would incur $25,000.00 for flight school training hours. Taxpayer is considering purchasing aircraft and training son and others. Could this be a business allowing all deductions for insurance fuel etc..if he charged the other students for use of the aircraft.
The plane would be used for the education of the son along with others???

[gkaiseril]

If I am not mistaken, the father would need an FAA Instructor's license, not just a pilot's license.

This could be considered a hobby unless other actions are taken to support being a business. Yes, teaching is not a hobby, but flight instruction would be an easy way to write off personal flying expenses.

[Lion]

Personal Use

Instructor will still have personal use of the airplane when teaching his own son as an alternative to paying an existing flight school. I agree that father needs to meet all federal, state, and local regulations re running a flight school.

[BOB W]

Flight log book would be used to allocate personal/business use.

[erchess]

Purpose of Flight School

I thought that pretty much the only way to become a commercial pilot is to be a military pilot first. (Can anyone confirm or deny that?)

On the other hand if I run a school as a business does whether my students intend to make personal or business use of what I teach them affect my tax consequences? It does seem like it would affect the fee structure they will go along with but I can't think of any other sense in which that issue would affect the life of the school or instructor.

[Burke]

I thought that pretty much the only way to become a commercial pilot is to be a military pilot first. (Can anyone confirm or deny that?

Though that was the usual route to flying for the big airlines in the old days, it is not a requirement.

[taxxcpa]

My thoughts

I thought that pretty much the only way to become a commercial pilot is to be a military pilot first. (Can anyone confirm or deny that?)

On the other hand if I run a school as a business does whether my students intend to make personal or business use of what I teach them affect my tax consequences? It does seem like it would affect the fee structure they will go along with but I can't think of any other sense in which that issue would affect the life of the school or instructor.

I have a client who gives flying lessons and has been taking big losses on his return. He has a full-time job as an Air Traffic Controller and says he expects to have profits after he retires from his job.

There is no requirement that you have been a military pilot in order to obtain a license, but generally an Airline would not hire you as a pilot otherwise.

[JohnH]

I have always thought that the airlines hire mainly military pilots too, but then today I ran across this article in October's "Executive Travel" - a magazine published by American Express. The author of a section called "From the Flight Deck" says military pilots now make up fewer than half those entering commecial aviation, whereas the number used to be in the 70-80% range.

He attributed this to several factors: 1) The military now requires longer commitments from the pilots they train, 2) The poor economy is keeping more military pilots on active duty, and 3) pay structures for military pilots were increased significantly in the 90's, with military pilots now earning more money and getting better benefits than the average airline pilot.

He said the manority of non-military pilots hired by legacy airlines now come from commuter airlines, corporate aviation departments, and charter companies.

Interesting...

BTW, here's a unique way to enhance your military flight training, if one is so inclined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYExH8hpgXI